[mikl_plkcc]

IMP, dealer East, E-W vulnerable

My hand at North:
♠QT72
♥AJT542
♦AQ9
♣

The bidding went
N - (E) - S - (W)
(1♥) - / - (1♠)
/ - (1NT) - / - (2♣)!
/ - (2♦)! - / - (2NT)

Within the first round of auction, they bid both my long suits, so I didn't know what I should respond and decided to wait for one more round.

The 2♣ bid was a puppet to 2♦, which were both meaningless.

I was desperately waiting for my partner to compete in ♦, but he stayed silent throughout the auction. Given this auction, with the opponents having a misfit and likely to have the majority of the high cards, I was afraid that they would make 2NT, so I bid 3♦, thinking that we had a diamond fit.

Then I got penalty doubled by East, and the bidding went pass pass to me. I started to think it meant East actually had long ♦ so I escaped to 3♥, then West doubled as well. My partner, at that point, pulled it to 4♦ and got doubled again, which became the final contract.

The dummy put down a 3=1=5=4 with 4 HCP, ♦K and ♣J, and we went down 3, resulting in -12.20 IMPs which ruined our whole session. The opponent at other tables went 2NT, 3NT, 5♣, etc., and none was made.

Why was my judgement seriously wrong? I really thought 2NT would make and I didn't expect them to double 3♦ without having long ♦ in one hand.

[mike777]

If they can make 2NT at imps, why does that make you AFRAID ?? That is the most important question ❓

Probably the answer to all the other issues as well.
As MikeH and many other posters have told us, scared bridge, afraid bridge is poor bridge.

Hopefully , after this fiasco, next time any opponents stop in 2NT your reaction will be

Opponents you should be the scared ones, they have you on defense. smile

[mikeh]

In what universe do you expect 3D to be a good contract? One of the things advancing players need to learn is to LISTEN to the auction. That doesn’t mean being able to recite the auction correctly. It means thinking about what the auction means!

So….what does this auction tell you?

Firstly, your very nice heart suit….which looked wonderful before the auction began….has turned into a not very good suit. The person sitting behind you has an opening hand with 5 hearts. So you don’t want to play in hearts very often.

The 1S bid tells you that your RHO has 4+ spades. You wouldn’t usually be thinking of bidding spades anyway, but knowing that an opponent has some hcp and at least 4 spades makes it unlikely that your side belongs in spades, and you already know, from the 1H bid, that you probably don’t belong in hearts

Then RHO helps you out some more…he bids 1N. What does he probably hold?

12-14 hcp, 5 hearts, 2-3 spades and usually no side 4 card suit or he could be 2=5=4=2 with club cards and weak diamonds or 2=5=2=4 with diamond cards and weak clubs.

Then LHO bids 2C. This is a very common treatment….it forces opener to bid 2D but it’s not ‘meaningless’. Nothing the opps bid…including passing….is ever meaningless.

If you don’t understand what 2C means, ask.

I’m assuming that the auction given shows that RHO has an invitational hand with exactly 4 spades (with 5 he’d usually bid 2S over 2D, to check back to see if opener has 3 spades). He also has only 1 or 2 hearts, since with 3 or more he’d have raised hearts at some point.

What does 2N say about his minors? Well, since he has at most 6 cards in the majors, and may be 4=1, he has at least 7 cards in the minors.

Given your shape it is likely that the opps have a club or two more than they have diamonds, but it’s still entirely possible that opener is 2=5=4=2 and even more possible that he’s 2=5=3=3, and responder could be 4=1=4=4, and even more possible that he is 4=2=4=3/4=2=3=4.

Responder is asking opener to bid 3N is he has a nice 13 count or any 14 count. So responder has at least a good 10-11 hcp and could have up to a misfitting 12 count…a stiff heart with 4=1=4=4 shape shouldn’t blast 3N with 12 points.

Opener hasn’t yet told you whether he is max or min….you’d need to pass to find out…if he bids 3N, he’s max and if he passes, he’s min.

But you don’t need to find out this last detail. You already know more than enough to know what to do.

Ask yourself this….how many hcp does partner hold?

It’s not a hard question to answer. You have 13…on a good day, when both opps have minimums, they have about 22-23 hcp and may have as many as 26…..so you can expect partner to have 2-3 hcp. Where is he most likely to have them? The opps will usually hold between 5 and 8 diamonds! You hold 3. How many does that leave for partner?

He will have 2=5, so probably wise to assume 3.

You ‘know’ that he probably has 2-3 spades since the opps can’t have more than a 4-2 fit. He almost surely has 0-1 heart, if only because responder might not bid 2N with only 4=0 in the majors


But….have you noticed how many clubs you hold? Have you LISTENED to what the opps told you about their club holding? Opener rates to have 2=4 and most likely 2=3, definitely not 5. He rebid 1N, not 2C.

Responder won’t often be short in clubs but rarely will he hold long clubs…he might well have bid a 5 card suit.


Put all this together and you can infer that partner is going to be more or less 2=1=4=6 with 2-3 hcp. Do you seriously think that 3D is going to work out well? Why?

Where the hell are you taking any tricks? The odds are that partner has something close to xx x xxxx Qxxxxx. Please explain your plan.

Even if by some miracle he has xx x Kxxxx xxxxx, explain how you think playing 3C is better than beating 2N on a diamond lead?

Look…I’m being tough on you but your mistake is just a particularly glaring example of a common novice mistake. You hold a very nice hand, and you haven’t realized how bad a hand it has become, on the auction. As you get better you will learn to 'listen to the auction. While the opps are using their bidding to tell each other what they have, they’re also telling you. You need to pay attention….to think about what they are saying and how it affects your hand.

I’ve held as many as 20 hcp and never bid when the opp on my right opened my best suit and the opp on my left bid my second suit….both sides vulnerable, so I knew neither was psyching. I collected 300 against their partscore. This was many years ago in a club game. We had the only plus score our way because everyone else couldn’t bring themselves to pass….but I knew that partner has 0-2 hcp and even if we had a fit, that suit broke badly plus I had no dummy entries plus LHO held a stack in my best suit. So I passed throughout. Because I LISTENED to the auction and drew (accurate) inferences

It’s often annoying when one has a good hand and the opponents keep bidding, but there are times, and this was one of them, when you should be grateful they warned you to keep your mouth shut.

[johnu]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-January-31, 17:37, said:

IMP, dealer East, E-W vulnerable


The bidding went
N - (E) - S - (W)
(1♥) - / - (1♠)
/ - (1NT) - / - (2♣)!
/ - (2♦)! - / - (2NT)

The hand editor (has ♠ symbol with vertical red lines) properly formats bidding sequences so they are easily interpreted.

[P_Marlowe]

mikl_plkcc, on 2025-January-31, 17:37, said:

<snip>
... with the opponents having a misfit and likely to have the majority of the high cards, I was afraid that they would make 2NT, so I bid 3♦,

Do you think, they like to play in a misfit auction 2NT.
They stopped, this means, they wont have the power for game, due to this you can place p with 4-6 points,
i.e. they will have trouble making the contract.
And if they make they will only get 120-150, but if they get down you get 100.
They have the majority, they can expect to go plus, maybe it occurs / maybe not, be glad, that the auction
told you that this is a misfit hand. They will find out soon enough and may go down choosing a reasonable line,
that fails due to the misfit nature.

Finally, if you decided to go in with 3D, you made your choice, running to 3H is ..., if you guess, guess only once,
you may guess right / wrong, but only try to guess once, if you have to make guess.